Hi Alan If you have no scenery, you are no way near the point of "slapping" on the plaster . You first have to "Dream","Plan", then "Build". What is your scenery goal, as to "place, era" etc? Is there any background? You should have the background completed, before you start with the plaster. I just completed repainting the sky of my 24'x24' around the wall layout, (with a roller brush on a long handle. The color of the blue sky was matched (electronically, at the paint store) to the blue color of the top of 200" of SceniKing sectional banner paper background. The paper sections were glued in place with a huge glue stick. One of my rivers is built on an old frontless sliding "pull-out" kitchen drawer, to provide access to the area in the rear. Kalmbach, has several excellent books on scenery construction. Waterfalls, are really not too hard to construct. For deciduous trees, I use furnace filters that are cut in circles and pressed onto half wooden skewers (pressed into holes in preshaped ,stained 2" thick bases of Styrofoam . I sprinkle ground up Woodland Scenic green foam clumps onto the glue covered circles, that are pressed on sequentially. Some use stacked 2" insulation board for building "lift-out" mountains. I used Hydrocal plaster and plaster cloth, applied to screen wire, tacked on a reinforced mountain built of 3/4" plywood arcs,(with side and bottom access holes) Nuff said! Below is a picture of one of my "ravines", with bridges, and plastic water. Incidentally, the blue painted sky is matched to the commercial background, that is glued to a pull-down window shade, covering a window. "Dream-Plan-then "Build". Bob Hahn
SHUNTING area that is, der.
Thanks everyone for your support and ideas.
My layout is 23' x 14' and it will have 2 continous lines and a shuting area eventually.
As I am on a pension any money I can save on scenery will be spent on track, controlls, rolling stock, points, buildings and lighting.
So I will be doing my scenery with a lot of sawdust and I already have a large bag of dental plaster. For the foliage of my trees I'll be using coconut fibre, which I get for nothing from an upholstery repairer.
God bless and may you all have a joyous Christmas, Alan
I sure would appreciate any techniques for making waterfalls just using plaster and gluing rocks onto the plaster.
Alan, I don't want to take away from your fun with plaster, but if you get a chance to switch up your materials, give Sculptamold a try. It's very easy to work with and no where near as messy as plaster has the potential to be. It was one of the first materials I worked with and I love it. Of course, I am the constructive equivalent of Messy Marvin so the Sculptamold is a better choice for me. Good luck to you.
Dan
To all you modellers who haven't started building terrain on your layouts for one reason or another, start now.
50 layouts and counting and all I've ever done is run trains and place a few buildings.
I think I thought that my efforts wouldn't measure up!!!!!!!!!!!
Today I was procrasting again and then I decided I've nothing to lose and you modellers have encouraged me to start.
I plasted about 4' of terrain building a waterfall etc., and let me tell you, it looks a dam sight better than plain board.
I'll be slapping on that plaster for all it's worth.
God bless and thanks for the encouragement, Alan.